How Pre-service Teachers’ Understand
and Perform Science Process Skills

Vivien Mweene Chabalengula; Frackson Mumba; Simeon Mbewe

doi:10.12973/eurasia.2012.832a

How Pre-service Teachers’ Understand and Perform Science Process Skills

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Vivien Mweene Chabalengula ¹ ^* , Frackson Mumba ¹, Simeon Mbewe ¹

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¹ Southern Illinois University Carbondale, USA^* Corresponding Author

Abstract

This study explored pre-service teachers’ conceptual understanding and performance on science process skills. A sample comprised 91 elementary pre-service teachers at a university in the Midwest of the USA. Participants were enrolled in two science education courses; introductory science teaching methods course and advanced science methods course. Data were collected through a questionnaire. Results showed that pre-service teachers had limited conceptual understanding of science process skills. On the other hand, they had higher performance on the science process skills. Whilst majority of the participants were unable to provide correct definitions of the science process skills, they performed well on the test that involved novel situations of the process skills. The findings have implications for science teaching, learning and teacher education.

Keywords

conceptual understanding
performance
pre-service teacher
science process skills

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed, 2012, Volume 8, Issue 3, 167-176

https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2012.832a

Publication date: 12 Jan 2012

Article Views: 4596

Article Downloads: 2356

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How to cite this article

APA

Chabalengula, V. M., Mumba, F., & Mbewe, S. (2012). How Pre-service Teachers’ Understand and Perform Science Process Skills. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 8(3), 167-176. https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2012.832a

Vancouver

Chabalengula VM, Mumba F, Mbewe S. How Pre-service Teachers’ Understand and Perform Science Process Skills. EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed. 2012;8(3):167-76. https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2012.832a

AMA

Chabalengula VM, Mumba F, Mbewe S. How Pre-service Teachers’ Understand and Perform Science Process Skills. EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed. 2012;8(3), 167-176. https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2012.832a

Chicago

Chabalengula, Vivien Mweene, Frackson Mumba, and Simeon Mbewe. "How Pre-service Teachers’ Understand and Perform Science Process Skills". Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education 2012 8 no. 3 (2012): 167-176. https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2012.832a

Harvard

Chabalengula, V. M., Mumba, F., and Mbewe, S. (2012). How Pre-service Teachers’ Understand and Perform Science Process Skills. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 8(3), pp. 167-176. https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2012.832a

MLA

Chabalengula, Vivien Mweene et al. "How Pre-service Teachers’ Understand and Perform Science Process Skills". Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, vol. 8, no. 3, 2012, pp. 167-176. https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2012.832a